When Saint Xavier School and Parish officials began a capital fundraising campaign this past fall they had a feasibility study that had been done that showed they could expect to raise between $700,000 and $850,000. Father Gale Hammerschmidt announced at the ‘Freezin for a Reason’ Celebration on Saturday that the pledges have exceeded $900,000.

“We’ve been receiving pledges now for about two-and-a-half weeks, and we’re up over $900,000. So we’re really excited about what that can do for our school, our church, just for our whole parish.”

The funds will primarily be used to upgrade facilities. “There are some things that we need to just improve. We need to be more handicapped accessible, we have a new roof that we need to put on, a lot of those kind of things. We’re excited that now we’re going to have the capacity to do that.”

Capital Campaign Co-Chair Kurt Leistner stated it was outstanding. ” We exceeded our expectations pretty much there.” Leistner stated. “Everybody stepped up to the plate, and we worked really hard.” On the Saint Xavier parish he said, “It’s just a great parish. It just keeps getting better and better here. And Father Gale, he’s an inspiration to us, he kept us motivated.”

Leistner added the funds will be collected over a three year period, meaning the projects that will fund can be done over a three to four year period.

Parish and community members gathered Saturday at the Flagstop Resort and RV Park for the Freezin for a Reason Celebration, which celebrated Saint Francis Xavier Day, and kicked off the celebration of the 150th year of existence for the parish.  That included a two-mile fun run, a polar plunge into the cold waters of Milford Lake, and lunch from Cox Brothers Barbecue. Saint Xavier School Principal Shawn Augustine confirmed that the event raised approximately $10,000.

Father Hammerschmidt said the group that made the polar plunge into the lake included in addition to himself and Shawn Augustine, some teachers, two other priests, and Coach Randall Zimmerman. Father Hammerschmidt led the group into the lake, but they played a joke on him. After getting into the water he turned around and saw the rest of them standing on the shore and applauding him. No one else ran into the lake. But…..finally….the rest of them entered the water.